


Beauty Without Vanity

by vanillafluffy



Category: The Trixie Belden Mysteries - Julie Campbell Tatham & Kathryn Kenny
Genre: Animal Death, Death by Natural Causes, Death from Old Age, F/M, Gen, I Made Myself Cry, Tearjerker, Tears
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:34:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25561387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vanillafluffy/pseuds/vanillafluffy
Summary: For the prompt, "Epitaph for a Dog". Fifteen years is a good, long life for a dog...it's also a hefty stretch of a person's life. Trixie reflects.
Relationships: Trixie Belden/Jupiter Jones | Justus Jonas
Comments: 6
Kudos: 7
Collections: Bite Sized Bits of Fic from 2020





	Beauty Without Vanity

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Brumeier](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brumeier/gifts).



When her phone rings, Trixie sees the familiar number and smiles. “Hi, Moms!” she sings out as she answers. “How is everything?”

Life in Rocky Beach, California is wonderful. Trixie loves her job at Jones Salvage Yard, the home she’s made with her fiance Jupiter Jones and her days off riding her sweet horse, Cecil--but it’s good to hear from her mother about what’s going on in her hometown of Sleepyside-on-Hudson, New York.

There’s a ragged breath on the other end of the call, and her brother Bobby’s voice says, “Trixie?”

It sounds like he’s crying--or been crying--and that’s not like him. She feels a hot stab of anxiety. “What’s wrong? Did something happen to Moms? Or Dad?”

A sniffle. “No. Moms is at one of her classes. Dad’s still at the bank, I guess. It’s only four-thirty here.”

“What’s wrong?” _Something has to be wrong. Because otherwise, why would he call me crying? He grew out of being a cry-baby when he was seven or eight._

“It’s Reddy. He’s gone.”

‘Gone’ doesn’t mean run away, not used like this. ‘Gone’ means the faithful Irish setter is _dead_. “Oh, Bobby,” she says helplessly. “I’m so sorry. What happened? Was it a car on Glen Road?” Usually he'd stayed close to the house, but sometimes he’d gone haring out after rabbits…flashing like a bright penny in the sunlight, always drawing the eye.

“No.” His voice is subdued. “I got off the school bus and came in for a snack. And he greeted me the same as he always does. And it’s a real pretty day--clear and cool, and the leaves are turning. So I thought we’d go for a walk….” Of course--how many hundreds of times had she done just that? It was a way to get away from from her bossy older brothers and the demands of her younger one? She could tell him anything and his tail never stopped wagging.

Bobby stops. Trixie can hear his uneven breathing. He’s how old now? Seventeen, or nearly so. This year, he’s a senior at Sleepyside Junior/Senior High.

“We went down to the brook,” Bobby continues, his voice breaking. Is that grief, or is his voice changing? “I sat down on that big rock, and Reddy sat down and he was leaning against my knee…we sat there for a while. I was just staring at the trees, thinking about my stupid History assignment, not really paying attention. When I got up to go, he didn’t--”

Trixie feels her own tears welling up. “Oh, Bobby…Bobby, I’m so sorry--”

“Maybe if I hadn’t made him go for a walk--maybe it’s my fault--”

“No! No, no no… you didn’t do anything wrong! Reddy was an old dog. Fifteen is pretty old for a dog.” More than half Trixie’s life--before, during and after her teens! “And it sounds like it was peaceful. He didn’t suffer. He didn’t have to go to the vet--he’d’ve hated that. It was just you and him, and he loved you so much--and you had one last walk--” Her face is damp. Of course, it’s the ocean air causing the briny taste on her lips, not tears.

Seasons here are subtle; the leaves don’t turn in southern California, but autumn was the season when Reddy shone brightest. The trees themselves seemed to be trying to compliment him, satiny copper against the blazing foliage. But oh, how it had tangled his feathers, the term for the plumes of his ears, legs and tail

Poor Bobby probably can’t even remember a time before Reddy--he’d been in diapers when Dad came home with the silky red pup. She, Mart and Brian had all be over the moon, and she remembers talking about it in Show and Tell the next day. That’s right, she’d been in third grade, and her teacher, Miss Moore had talked about dogs in science class later, about how dogs were descended from wolves, and how many different kinds there were….

“What should I do?” he asks her. “I brought him home--I didn’t want to leave him sitting there.” A couple gulping breaths. “I didn’t want anything to find him and eat him.”

There are coyotes in parts of Westchester County, she knows. Bobby’s concern isn’t unwarranted.

“I put him down in the kitchen, so he’s lying on his blanket in the corner…he’s not moving--” 

Trixie aches for her tender-hearted brother. From two thousand miles away, she can’t even hug him. Losing Reddy--it’s going to affect him a lot more than it’ll affect her. He’ll miss the adoring dog every single day. On the other side of the country, she wrestles with grief, but she’s been gone long enough that she’s not going to miss him on a daily basis. She’s already said her good-byes, in a way.

“I’m so sorry, Bobby.” Her voice wobbles. 

It’s so hard to imagine Crabapple Farm without Reddy! He’d been aging when she left--most of her memories of him are of boundless energy--chasing everything that moved in the woods when she and Honey went riding…once they’d thought he and his accomplice Patch had killed a deer--they’d proven the dogs innocent--no more graceful games of fetch in the orchard….

“Should I dig a hole, do you think?” Bobby asks, hesitant. “I don’t want to, but I know he can’t stay here.”

It would give him something constructive to do. “That’s probably a good idea,” Trixie says, trying to keep her voice comforting. “Leave him where he is til Moms and Dad get home. They’ll want to say good-bye, too.”

“I will. Thanks, Trixie.”

She stands there, in the middle of the salvage yard with her phone in her hand, trying to pretend a pillar of her universe hasn’t crumbled. The exuberant setter frolics through her memories. The time he jumped out a window to follow her, Honey and Jim on their moonlight ride. Their trailer trip, when he and Honey’s little cocker were underfoot every step of the way. The time he’d led searchers to them when she, Brian and Jim were stranded in that snowstorm…

Jupiter approaches her, concerned by her posture, as if she’s lost her center, a stillness. “Sweetie? What’s wrong?”

Blue eyes regard him sorrowfully. “Reddy’s dead!” 

Jupiter nods understandingly--the Belden family dog…she’s talked about him, mentioned the idea of rescuing a dog for company while she’s gardening in the back yard. His brawny arms gather her in. She leans against him, the solid bulk of him and lets go…tears for her dog, of the big chunk of her life this loss means, saying good-bye to the biggest part of her youth. 

Reddy’s vivid coat won’t flash through the woods any more…despite his breed, he’d never been much good as a hunting dog in the field, disappointing her brothers--but oh, how lively he’d been, pursuing birds and squirrels and anything that caught his eye, then prancing joyfully back to them, feathers dripping from the brook, often as not. How many times did Trixie mop the kitchen floor after one of his soggier entrances? Hours setting in the living room combing his tangled red locks while watching the documentaries Moms encouraged? He’d adored that, lolling across her while she curried him

Those precious years, between the time they got Reddy and the summer the Wheelers moved in nearby...Reddy was her most frequent playmate. She’d pretended he was a horse, sometimes, to satisfy that need she’s always had. He was her noble chestnut stallion...they wandered through their adventures in the woods side-by-side. Sometimes, when he ran off in pursuit of someting, she'd run along behind, imagining they were galloping through the woods.... A peaceful rural childhood by today’s standards; wholesome as an episode of _Lassie_.

Sniffling, she looks up at Jupe, whose brown eyes remind her of her first brown-eyed friend, eyes full of love. 

“He was a good boy.”


End file.
